Welcome to Ham Radio's Daily Satirical Newsletter since 1990 |
|
s |
DX
CLUSTER
1.8
3.5
7.0
10
14
18
21
24
28
50
6PM
145.130 NET
WEEKEND EDITION:
NEW
ENGLAND BULLNET ON THE AIR
SATURDAY ON 3928 AT 3PM FOR
SWAPNET.....No regular
flu this winter, imagine that!
Washing your hands, wearing
masks and kids staying home from
school did the trick....Wind
chill brings it down to 10
degrees here on the rock.....SpaceX
rocket almost has it almost
right....Mysterious odor caused
by BB pellet
stuck in teen's nose for 8
years ....Keep
opening up the borders and
this is what you will
get...Today's
Dumbass from Russia....

Foundations of Amateur Radio
Word of the day:
software
Every community has its own
language. As a member of that
community you learn the words,
their meaning and their
appropriate use. For example,
the combination of words "Single
Side Band" have a specific
meaning inside amateur radio.
Outside of radio, those same
words are random words with no
relationship.
Sometimes a term like "FM"
can be heard across many
communities with similar
understanding, though not
identical.
It gets tricky when a word is
used widely but doesn't have a
common understanding at all. A
word like "software" for
example.
A question you might hear in
amateur radio is: "Can I buy a
software defined radio or SDR
that has digital modes
built-in?"
It's a perfectly reasonable
question, the radio runs
software, the digital modes are
software, so the answer is
obvious, right?
What about: "Can the hundred
or more computers in my car play
Solitaire?"
Aside from the perhaps
unexpected fact that your car
has computers on board, you most
likely know the answer to that.
No, since the computers are
specialised for different tasks
- and if you're driving a Tesla
right now, yes, you can play
Solitaire, but I'd recommend
that you keep your eyes on the
road instead.
My point is that not all
software is created equal.
The software inside an SDR is
essentially doing signal
processing, often by several
components, each running
software, transforming an
antenna signal into something,
that can be used somewhere else,
likely sound.
The applications WSJT-X and
fldigi, both software, use a
computer running Linux, MacOS or
Windows, software, to decode and
encode digital modes while
providing a way for you to
interact with it. Software
running on software.
You might well argue that we
should be running applications
like that directly on our radio
and on the face of it that
sounds perfectly reasonable,
except that to achieve that,
you'd also need to build a
system to install and update
different types of applications,
so you could run SSTV, APRS,
RTTY, PSK31, FT8 or any of the
other hundreds of digital modes
and new ones as they are
developed.
If you did that, you'd also
have to provide a way to manage
the operating system, to connect
to the Internet and provide
security. You'd need to develop
a user-interface, perhaps a
keyboard and mouse solution, a
screen, etc.
Before long you'll have
developed a whole computing
infrastructure, much like the
one we already have in the form
of the computer on your desk or
the phone in your pocket.
Computers are getting faster
and faster every day. This
allows for the software on them
to become more and more complex.
The inter-dependencies are
increasing by the second, but
that doesn't mean that
specialisation isn't useful.
A software defined radio
likely has a Field Programmable
Gate Array, an FPGA on-board
that is great at processing data
in streams. It too runs
software. Your microwave is
running software, as is your
television, your smart-watch,
your battery charger, the
gearbox in your car and your
electric tooth brush.
Making a distinction between
the various types of software is
helpful to understand what is
possible and what is not. Being
a computer nerd, I must point
out that I've only barely
scratched the surface of
software here, in-case you're
curious, microcode, firmware,
hardware abstraction, the rabbit
hole goes very deep.
Not all software is created
equal and every now and then
it's a good idea to remember
that when you talk about a word
in one community, it might mean
a completely different thing in
another and sometimes the
distinction is significant.
As for having an SDR that
runs WSPR, no. You can transmit
from a computer though, but
that's a whole other thing.
I'm Onno VK6FLAB
Amateur Radio Newsline Report
***
WYOMING STUDENTS GET QSO
WITH ISS AT LAST
DON/ANCHOR: We begin this week
with the story of a promise
fulfilled: In the language of
space, Perseverence isn't just
the name of a rover on Mars.
It's a quality that paid off
among students in Wyoming who —
after a failed attempt in
January — finally got their QSO
with the International Space
Station. Here's Mike Askins
KE5CXP with the details.
MIKE: Students at Wyoming's
Newcastle High School were
flying high, at least in spirit,
on Monday, March 1st. Their
amateur radio contact with ISS
Commander Mike Hopkins KF5LJG
was a success at last, after
their first try failed as a
result of technical troubles
with the U.S. astronauts' radio.
With that radio down for
repairs, the QSO took place via
the Russians' 2-meter rig
instead and the students'
questions rolled in fast, making
the most of their precious
10-minute window for contact.
After hearing how bok choy and
mustard is grown in space, how
astronauts gently toss a
football around for amusement
and how a microgravity
environment can cause fluid in
the ears, the students wrapped
things up by saying 73.
The contact, accomplished with
the help of a multi-point
telebridge network, was a
triumph for the high school as
much as the ARISS program: It
marked the first time in the
ARISS program's 20-year history,
that it has organized a QSO with
students in Wyoming.
To
hear the QSO, visit the YouTube
site that appears in the printed
version of this week's script.
DON/ANCHOR: In the meantime,
ARISS chair Frank Bauer, KA3HDO,
announced that efforts were
under way to identify the issue
that caused the radio to fail in
January and a team is working
with NASA and the European Space
Agency on a solution.
**
SPACEWALKING AMATEURS PREP FOR
POWER UPGRADE
DON/ANCHOR:
Meanwhile, big things have been
happening OUTSIDE the ISS, too.
Paul Braun WD9GCO picks up the
story from here.
PAUL:
For two amateur radio operators
aboard the International Space
Station, it was their moment in
the sun. Literally. NASA flight
engineers Kate Rubins KG5FYJ and
Victor Glover KI5BKC took the
first moves toward a power
upgrade for the space station,
during a seven-hour and
four-minute spacewalk to outfit
the new solar arrays with
modification kits.
If the
view for observers was a little
more spectacular than usual,
consider that Rubins' helmet
held a high definition video
camera for the first time and
was streaming the action live.
Videos had been taken previously
using a helmet cam, of course,
but only with standard
definition.
NASA was
quick to point out that the
present solar arrays on the ISS
are working fine but they're
degrading and are approaching
the end of their useful life.
The spacewalk was designed to
prepare for the installation of
new solar arrays which are
expected to be sent to the ISS
aboard a SpaceX vehicle starting
in June.
Meanwhile, there
is still work to be done. NASA
officials said that the upgrade
is to be completed by Friday
March 5th, with Rubins returning
accompanied by another amateur
radio operator: Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency astronaut
Soichi Noguchi KD5TVP.
**
RF INTERFERENCE REPORTS DRAW
RAPID RESPONSE FROM OFCOM
DON/ANCHOR: In the UK, the
telecommunications regulator
recently delivered a rapid
response to a report of radio
interference – but this wasn't
exactly an amateur radio crisis.
Jeremy Boot G4NJH explains.
JEREMY: It took barely a
half-hour as Ofcom, the
telecommunications regulator in
the UK, responded swiftly to an
urgent report of widespread RF
interference, calling it a high
priority case. Even the local
police got involved and awaited
the arrival of a spectrum
engineer dispatched from Ofcom's
Spectrum Management Centre,
which operates around the clock.
The crisis at hand
wasn't jammed signals reported
by radio operators but the
failure of shoppers at a
Hertfordshire superstore to use
their key fobs to unlock their
vehicles in the car park.
Because the key fobs use radio
spectrum at very low power they
are subject to interference
issues the same as other radio
equipment.
Using his
spectrum analyser, the engineer
was unable to pinpoint the
source of the interference,
which could have been simply
lightbulbs or a malfunctioning
doorbell. The situation had
already resolved itself by the
time he arrived.
Hams in
the UK should report any and all
interference to Ofcom, via the
web address given in the text
version of this report at
arnewsline.org.... even if their
vehicle's key fob is working
fine.
**
THOUSANDS OF
QSOS MADE TO HONOR DISCOVERY OF
PLUTO
DON/ANCHOR: Imagine
getting a QSL card from Pluto.
Thousands did. Well, OK, it was
really the next best thing: a
special event station
celebrating Pluto. Here's Randy
Sly W4XJ with the details.
RANDY: Amateur radio
operators from around this world
recently celebrated the
discovery of another world:
Pluto, which was first seen in
1930 by astronomer Clyde
Tombaugh. Special event station
W7P – with "P" for Pluto – was
activated last month by the
Northern Arizona DX Association
for the Pluto Anniversary
Countdown Special Event. There
will be an event counting down
each of the next 10 years,
ending with the centennial year
2030.
This was a
particularly special event for
Doug Tombaugh N3PDT, nephew of
the astronomer who made the
discovery. Doug marked the
occasion by operating along with
three other amateurs as W7P/0,
logging 1,191 contacts. He said
he especially enjoyed talking
with other amateurs who knew his
uncle or were involved in other
activities related to Pluto.
Countdown coordinator Bob
Wertz NF7E said in all 15
amateurs logged more than 7,000
contacts from their home QTHs as
well as from a communications
trailer on the grounds of Lowell
Observatory, where Clyde first
made his discovery.
The
countdown begins again next year
on February 12th – the last
Saturday before the February
18th anniversary itself.
For Amateur Radio Newsline, I’m
Randy Sly, W4XJ.
**
SOLAR PANEL PROMISES MORE
STREAMED ENERGY TO EARTH
DON/ANCHOR: Now here's a story
that should energize you: A ham
radio operator has helped
develop a way to bring more of
the sun's power home to Earth.
Kent Peterson KC0DGY sheds light
on this.
KENT: Amateur
radio ingenuity has helped lead
to the development of a
prototype solar panel designed
to transmit electricity to Earth
from outer space.
Launched in May of 2020 aboard a
Pentagon drone, the device is
known as the Photovoltaic Direct
Current to Radio Frequency
Antenna Module, or PRAM for
short. Project co-developer Paul
Jaffee KJ4IKI said in a recent
CNN report that the PRAM
underwent a successful test
recently by the United States
Department of Defense at the
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.
He said the PRAM produces
about 10 watts of energy for
transmission but could be scaled
up, bringing the promise of
transmitting energy to the power
grids back on Earth. The panel
uses the blue waves of light in
space which become diffused when
entering the Earth's atmosphere.
It captures these waves, which
are more powerful than sunlight
on Earth, and retains that
energy.
No, the PRAM
hasn't yet sent any of that
power back home but scientists
say the tests have shown it
works. The concept is to beam
microwaves to Earth for
conversion into electricity
wherever it is needed. Paul told
CNN that the next move would be
to expand its ability to collect
even more sunlight to prepare it
for that microwave
transportation back to Earth.
Team co-leader Chris DePuma
told CNN the technology would be
especially useful in regions
where natural disasters have
taken down the power grid.
**
AMATEUR MAKES PLANS
FOR 'FLYING HAMS' PODCAST
DON/ANCHOR: If you're one of
those amateur radio operators
who likes to get on air FROM the
air, as a pilot, this next story
from Andy Morrison K9AWM might
have you in mind.
ANDY:
Dan Hileman WO5WO is a ham with
a high-flying idea. A former
airline pilot-turned-middle
school teacher has another
project on the runway. He's
planning to start a podcast this
summer devoted to hams who
enjoying being IN the air....as
much as they like to be ON the
air. He'd like to bring hams on
board for ragchews about
fly-ins, DX-peditions, FAA
flight safety tips, and projects
that combine being a pilot and
an amateur radio operator. He's
especially interested in stories
of famous – and not-so-famous –
hams in the sky. He told
Newsline in an email that the
podcast is [quote] "just a fun
way to connect already connected
hobbies" [endquote] and he can't
guarantee there won't be more
than a few corny jokes along the
way. He said he hopes the
half-hour, bi-weekly podcast
will inspire youngsters to think
about flying and radio as two
related hobbies.
He's
working with a ham radio friend
who's a former Air Force pilot
and together they're hoping to,
well, get things off the ground.
Dan welcomes any and all ideas.
You can reach him via email at
flyinghams78@gmail.com Who knows
what ideas might just take wing?
**
SARL PARTNERSHIP TO
ASSIST KENYA'S NEWEST HAMS
DON/ANCHOR: Hams in South
Africa are partnering with hams
in Kenya to help that nation's
newest amateurs. Jim Meachen
ZL2BHF brings us that story.
JIM: The Communication
Authority of Kenya has approved
a memorandum of understanding
that will allow the South
African Radio League to assist
the Radio Society of Kenya by
administering the technical
parts of the amateur licence
exam. Regulator approval of the
agreement was announced in late
February. The memorandum
outlines how the Kenyan radio
society will continue to
administer the regulations and
operating procedure portions but
states that the South African
group will conduct online
courses for training of the
Kenyan amateurs and provide the
training manuals and
presentation material as well.
The arrangement, which had been
worked out during the past six
months, can now go forward. SARL
has similar agreements in place
with Namibia and Botswana.
**
AMSAT-DL TRACKS MARS
SPACE PROBE
DON/ANCHOR:
When it copied signals recently
from two space probes near Mars,
AMSAT Germany was listening for
a special reason. Ed Durrant
DD5LP explains.
ED:
AMSAT-DL, which has a long-term
goal to launch a space probe to
Mars, has been listening
meanwhile to probes from China
and the Emirates that are in
orbit around the planet. Using
the Bochum Observatory dish at
the Sternwarte Bochum Institute,
the German AMSAT organisation
has copied signals from
Tianwen-1 and EMM/Hope, both of
which are transmitting on 8.4
GHz. AMSAT-DL makes use of the
dish on a regular basis to
receive transmission from the
NASA/NOAA weather satellites.
Built in 1965 to provide
ground support for the Apollo
missions, the dish was renovated
in 2003 with the help of amateur
radio operators who added
phase-locked receivers in the
2.3 GHz, 5.8 GHz and 10.4 GHz
amateur bands, along with the
8.4 GHz receiver. The dish also
has an S-band, 2.4 GHz amateur
transmitter with 250 watts PEP
output. The dish, which is
20-metres, or 65.6 feet, in
diameter, copied signals from
Voyager 1 in 2006.
AMSAT
Germany's plan for a probe of
its own dates to 2002, when
preparations began for a way to
circle Mars, conduct experiments
and leave a payload on the
planet's surface. Scientists
hope the German P5-A probe will
be capable of transmitting on
amateur radio frequencies
receivable on Earth using a 2-
to 3-metre parabolic antenna.
**
HAMS IN BRAZIL
CHALLENGE REGULATOR'S LACK OF
RESPONSE
DON/ANCHOR: Hams
in Brazil have challenged the
nation's regulator, saying its
lack of response is keeping hams
off the air. Jeremy Boot G4NJH
has that story.
JEREMY:
Brazil's amateur radio society
LABRE has told the nation's
communications regulator ANATEL
that problems communicating with
them and their website have been
standing in the way of many who
wish to operate legally on the
ham bands.
In a letter
dated the 23rd February, the
radio organisation LABRE
acknowledged that the recent
introduction of online licence
testing had eased some of the
difficulties in getting on the
air but hams are now thwarted by
the bureaucracy they face in
order to complete the process.
The letter cited excessive days
waiting and a lack of
communication from ANATEL. LABRE
said that these difficulties
have been reported by newly
licensed amateurs as well as
those qualifying for upgrades.
In a report of the letter,
which appeared on Southgate
Amateur Radio News, there had
been no immediate response from
the Brazilian regulator.
**
OPEN REGISTRATION
BEGINS FOR YOUTH ON THE AIR CAMP
DON/ANCHOR: It's time to
think about amateur radio camp –
and the application period is
now open for young hams
throughout North, Central, and
South America. The Youth on the
Air camp will take place from
July 11th through July 16th at
the National Voice of America
Museum in West Chester, Ohio and
will welcome as many as 30
campers ages 15 through 25.
Scholarships are available for
those who cannot afford the $100
camp fee. The window to apply
closes on March 21st at 2359
UTC. For details or to download
a brochure visit
YouthOnTheAir.org
Organizers will announce in
April whether camp needs to be
rescheduled in response to
COVID-19 restrictions but for
now the plans are going forward.
**
NOMINATE A YOUNG HAM
FOR NEWSLINE'S AWARD
DON/ANCHOR: Speaking of young
hams, we have opened the
nomination period for our annual
Bill Pasternak WA6ITF Memorial
Amateur Radio Newsline Young Ham
of the Year award. Think of a
young amateur whose commitment
to community and whose
enthusiasm for radio has
inspired you and others and
submit their name. Nominees must
18 or younger living in the
United States, its possessions
or any Canadian province.
Downloadable nomination forms
can be found on our website
arnewsline.org
**
WORLD OF DX
In the world
of DX, be listening for special
event station GB2CR in Scotland
until the 18th of March. The
special callsign's suffix "CR"
stands for "Collins Radio," and
the operators will be using
vintage valve/tube radio
equipment manufactured in the
U.S. by Collins. Be listening on
80-10 meters; mostly SSB with
some CW. All QSOs will be
uploaded to ClubLog.
Be
listening for Bill, K9HZ; Kyle,
WA4PGM and Dan, W0CN active as
J68HZ from a villa in St. Lucia
until March 11th. Their activity
is usually on 160-2 meters using
CW, SSB, FT8 and EME. QSL J68HZ
via LoTW, eQSL or direct to K9HZ
Stian LB5SH will be active
as JW/LB5SH from the JW5E club
station on Spitsbergen Island in
the Norwegian archipelago of
Svalbard. He is expected to be
on the air between March 25th
and March 28th on various HF
bands using SSB and FT8. He will
also be in the CQWW WPX SSB
Contest on March 27 and 28th
using the callsign JW2T. Send
QSLs to JW/LB5SH and possibly
JW2T via LoTW or ClubLog.
Be listening for Ian,
ZS6JSI, who began operating from
Benin as ZS6JSI/TY in January
and expects to be there for six
months. Be listening mostly on
20 meters where he is using FT8.
He also operates mobile and can
be heard at times on 80/40/20
meters using SSB and
**
KICKER: DOCUMENTING AN OLD BOAT
ANCHOR'S SAIL
DON/ANCHOR:
If you've ever refurbished an
old boat anchor, you know the
challenges of adding a piece of
history to your shack. No doubt
you can relate to this next
story about a powerful old
Collins boat anchor. Ralph
Squillace KK6ITB tells about a
new video that chronicles its
rescue and its cross-country
journey several years ago.
RALPH: The control room and
the Collins 250,000-watt
transmitters once used by Voice
of America at its Delano Relay
Station in California is
transmitting history now instead
of U.S. government broadcasts
that began during World War II
into the Pacific Rim and Central
and South America. The
transmitter, once part of Delano
(duh-LAY-no) Relay DL-8, is now
part of the permanent exhibit at
the Antique Wireless Association
Museum in Bloomfield, New York,
where its cross-country journey
ended almost six years ago with
the help of the museum, the
Collins Collectors Association
and the VOA.
A video
moderated by Dennis Kidder W6DQ
and recently uploaded by the
museum shows the painstaking
effort of the team to save the
821A-1 transmitter from the
bulldozer headed its way after
Voice of America halted its
operations there in 2007. The
team, working to do disassembly
and transport on a tight
deadline, consisted of Jim
Stitzinger WA3CEX, Bill Cairns
N7OTQ, Rod Blocksome N0DAS, CCA
president Scott Kerr KE1RR and
Vince Baker from the VOA, among
others.
This was not
just Collins' most powerful
transmitter for a shortwave
broadcaster; it could also
autotune within 20 seconds,
helping it successful avoid
jammers seeking to silence the
U.S. government's messages. Its
story, however, remains
unsilenced: Visitors have shared
its message and its history at
the Antique Wireless Museum and
now in this 40-minute video
uploaded to YouTube in February.
Quantum Receiver Can Detect
Huge Swath of the RF Spectrum
US Army researchers have
built a so-called “quantum
sensor,” which can analyze
the full RF spectrum and
real-world signals, a
report
on Physics.org says. The
quantum sensor — technically
a Rydberg sensor — can
sample the RF spectrum from
0 to 20 GHz and is able to
detect AM and FM radio
signals, as well as
Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and other
RF communication protocols.
The peer-reviewed
Physical Review Applied
published the researchers’
findings, “Waveguide-coupled
Rydberg spectrum analyzer
from 0 to 20 Gigaherz,”
coauthored by Army
researchers David Meyer,
Paul Kunz, and Kevin Cox.
“The Rydberg sensor uses
laser beams to create highly
excited Rydberg atoms
directly above a microwave
circuit, to boost and hone
in on the portion of the
spectrum being measured,”
the article explains. “The
Rydberg atoms are sensitive
to the circuit’s voltage,
enabling the device to be
used as a sensitive probe
for the wide range of
signals in the RF spectrum.”
Cox, a researcher at the
US Army Combat Capabilities
Development Command (DEVCOM)
Army Research Laboratory,
called the development “a
really important step toward
proving that quantum sensors
can provide a new and
dominant set of capabilities
for our soldiers, who are
operating in an increasingly
complex electromagnetic
battlespace.”
Cox said earlier
demonstrations of Rydberg
atomic sensors were only
able to sense small and
specific regions of the RF
spectrum, but “our sensor
now operates continuously
over a wide frequency range
for the first time.” The
technology uses rubidium
atoms, which are excited to
high-energy Rydberg states.
These interact strongly with
the circuit’s electric
fields, allowing detection
and demodulation of any
signal received into the
circuit.
The report says the
Rydberg spectrum analyzer
has the potential “to
surpass fundamental
limitations of traditional
electronics in sensitivity,
bandwidth, and frequency
range.
According to Meyer,
“Devices that are based on
quantum constituents are one
of the Army's top priorities
to enable technical surprise
in the competitive future
battlespace. Quantum sensors
in general, including the
one demonstrated here, offer
unparalleled sensitivity and
accuracy to detect a wide
range of mission-critical
signals.”
The researchers plan
additional development to
improve the signal
sensitivity of the Rydberg
spectrum analyzer, aiming to
outperform existing
state-of-the-art technology.
“Significant physics and
engineering effort is still
necessary before the Rydberg
analyzer can integrate into
a field-testable device,”
Cox said.

March GEO Newsletter
available for free download
The March PDF of the GEO
Newsletter weather satellite
publication produced by the
Group for Earth Observation is
now available for free download
The Group for Earth
Observation's aim is to enable
amateur reception of weather and
earth imaging satellites that
are in orbit or planned for
launch in the near future.
Membership of GEO is free.
This edition features:
•
A tribute to Francis Bell G7CND,
who passed away early in January
• Two articles about iceberg
A69a, covering its 3-year
journey and encounter with South
Georgia
• An introduction to
'NASA Worldview Snapshots' which
provides imagery from NOAA 20
• Plus features on the Strait of
Hormuz, Lake Turkana and on the
SOHO solar observatory
Download the GEO Newsletter from
http://leshamilton.co.uk/GEO/newsletter.htm
Who is that masked man?
A person wearing a TV-shaped
mask left old TVs on more than
50 doorsteps in 2019
When residents of Henrico
County, Va., woke up on Sunday
morning, a number of them were
greeted with the sight of
vintage television sets sitting
on their doorsteps. But it
wasn’t until a few of the
recipients checked their
doorbell cameras that they
discovered the mysterious
deliverymen made the drops while
wearing what looked like old TVs
of their own on their heads.
Henrico Police Lieutenant
Matt Pecka told WTVR-TV that
more than 50 TVs were left at
homes throughout the
neighborhood by more than one
person “wearing a mask
resembling a television.”
“We determined there was no
credible threat to residents and
that this was strictly an
inconvenience. It was…unique,”
Pecka said, adding that police
were able to round up the TVs in
just over an hour on Sunday. The
county plans to recycle them.
The general sentiment among
residents who were gifted with
the old box sets seems to be
that the nighttime deliveries
were part of a prank. Especially
considering that the same thing
happened in a nearby Glen Allen
neighborhood last August.
“Everyone started coming out
of their houses, walking around
the neighborhood looking at the
TVs there on the doorstep,”
Jeanne Brooksbank, one of the
recipients, told the Washington
Post of Sunday’s incident. “It
was very Twilight Zone.”
“He wants to be known as the TV
Santa Claus, I don’t know,”
Jeanne’s husband, Jim
Brooksbank, added. “I can’t
think of any technology or
political point that would be
valid here. It’s just a
senseless prank.”
https://nowthisnews.com/videos/news/person-leaves-old-tvs-on-50-doorsteps-in-henrico-county-va
DX News from the ARRL
March
5, 2021
This week's bulletin was made
possible with information
provided by The Daily DX, the
OPDX Bulletin, 425 DX News,
DXNL, Contest Corral from QST
and the ARRL Contest Calendar
and WA7BNM web sites. Thanks
to all.
ZAMBIA, 9J. Bodo,
HB9EWU is QRV as 9J2BG while
working on a humanitarian
mission in the Luapula Province.
He is active in his spare time
generally on 20 meters. QSL to
home call.
OMAN, A4.
Operator A41CK will be QRV as
A42K as a Single Op/All Band
entry in the ARRL International
SSB DX contest. QSL via EA5GL.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, A6.
Greg, KD5ESG will be QRV as
A65HH while on work assignment
in Abu Dhabi. QSL via operator's
instructions.
SPAIN, EA.
Special event stations AM3DIM
and AM3YLD will be QRV from
March 6 to 12 to commemorate
International Women's Day on
March 8. QSL via operators'
instructions.
CANARY
ISLANDS, EA8. Miguel, EA1BP
plans to be QRV as ED8W in the
ARRL International SSB DX
contest as a Single Op/All
Band/High Power entry. QSL via
EA5GL.
MARTINIQUE, FM.
Station FM5BH will be QRV as a
Single Op/All Band/High Power
entry in the ARRL International
SSB DX contest. QSL via W3HNK.
SCOTLAND, GM. Chris, GM3WOJ
is QRV with special call sign
GB2CR until March 18 to honor
the legacy of the Collins Radio
Company. Activity is on 80 to 10
meters using SSB and some CW.
QSL via LoTW.
ECUADOR,
HC, Rick, NE8Z is QRV as HC1MD/2
from Santa Elena Province until
May 15. Activity is on 40 to 6
meters. QSL via K8LJG.
VATICAN, HV. Look for IK0FVC to
be QRV as HV0A in the ARRL
International SSB DX contest.
QSL via LoTW.
ST. LUCIA,
J6. Bill, K9HZ, Dan, W0CN and
Kyle, WA4PGM are QRV as J68HZ,
J68CN and J68PG, respectively,
until March 11. Activity is on
the HF bands. They will be
active as J68HZ in the ARRL
International SSB DX contest.
QSL direct to home calls.
PERU, OA. Ed, W9SI plans to
be QRV as OA4SS in the ARRL
International SSB DX contest as
a Single Op/All Band/High
Power/Unassisted entry. QSL via
KB6J.
CURACAO, PJ2. Don,
AF4Z, Vince, K4JC, Dan, N1ZZ and
Walt, WB5ZGA are QRV as PJ2/home
calls until March 9. Activity is
on 160 to 10 meters. They will
be active as PJ2T in the ARRL
International SSB DX contest.
QSL PJ2T via W3HNK and all
others to home calls.
BONAIRE, PJ4. Marty, W1MD plans
to be QRV as PJ4G in the ARRL
International SSB DX contest as
a Single Op/Single Band entry on
either 20 or 15 meters depending
on conditions. QSL via LoTW.
POLAND, SP. Special event
stations SN0ZOSP and SN100ZOSP
are QRV until February 5, 2022
to celebrate the 100th
anniversary of the Association
of the Voluntary Fire Brigades
of the Republic of
Poland.
QSL SN0ZOSP via SP9ODM and
SN100ZOSP via SP9SPJ.
BENIN, TY. Ian, ZS6JSI is QRV as
ZS6JSI/TY from Parakou until
June. Activity is in his spare
time on 80, 40 and 20 meters
using SSB and FT8. QSL via
EC6DX.
EUROPEAN RUSSIA,
UA. Special event station R125PR
is QRV during March to celebrate
Alexander S. Popov's first
wireless transmission 125 years
ago. QSL via R1AU.
MARSHALL ISLANDS, V7. Paul,
KA4WPX is QRV as V7/KA4WPX and
V73AX from Kwajalein Atoll, IOTA
OC-028. Activity is at various
times on 160 to 10 meters, and
possibly 6 meters, using CW and
SSB. QSL direct.
ASCENSION ISLAND, ZD8. Tev,
TA1HZ is QRV as ZD8HZ until
mid-April. He plans to be active
in the ARRL International SSB DX
contest and the upcoming CQ
World Wide WPX SSB contest. QSL
direct to home call.
THIS WEEKEND ON THE RADIO
The ARRL International SSB DX
Contest, NCCC RTTY Sprint, QRP
80-Meter CW Fox Hunt, NCCC CW
Sprint, K1USN
Slow Speed CW
Test, Novice Rig CW Roundup,
Wake-Up QRP CW Sprint, Open
Ukraine RTTY Championship, UBA
Spring CW Contest, NSARA
Contest, SARL Hamnet 40-Meter
Simulated Emergency SSB Contest
and the WAB 3.5 MHz Phone will
certainly keep contesters busy
this upcoming weekend.
The OK1WC Memorial is scheduled
for March 8.
The
Worldwide Sideband Activity
Contest and RTTYOPS Weeksprint
are scheduled for March 9.
The RSGB 80-Meter Club CW
Championship, AWA John Rollins
Memorial DX CW Contest, VHF-UHF
FT8 Activity Contest, CWops
Mini-CWT Test, QRP 40-Meter CW
Fox Hunt and Phone Weekly
Test/Fray are scheduled for
March 10.
THURSDAY EDITION: The
Army's new tool for
analyzing bomb shrapnel
could lead to better body armor
...Here is a
radio I would stay away
from....If you thought the
rising home costs are high in
New England, check
out this garage in
Canada...Do not screw with
monkey's....
ARISS, NASA, and ESA
Continue to Probe Amateur Radio
Problems on ISS
Amateur Radio on the
International Space Station
(ARISS)
International Chair Frank
Bauer, KA3HDO, reports that
the ARISS team has been
working closely with NASA
and the European Space
Agency (ESA) to identify
what may have caused what
ARISS is calling a “radio
anomaly” on January 27. The
net result has been an
inability to use the NA1SS
ham station gear in the ISS
Columbus module. For the
time being, ARISS school and
group contacts with crew
members have been conducted
using the ham station in the
ISS Service Module. The
radio issues came in the
wake of a January 27
spacewalk during which
astronauts installed new
cables (essentially feed
lines) to support the
commissioning of the
Bartolomeo attached payload
capability mounted on the
Columbus module. The job
involved re-routing the
cabling of the ARISS antenna
to the ARISS radio system
onboard Columbus.
“Through a great deal of
coordination with NASA and
ESA, ARISS will be
conducting a set of APRS
[automatic packet radio
system] tests to determine
the operational use of the
ARISS radio system in
Columbus through employment
of three different cabling
configurations,” Bauer
explained this week. “Over
the next couple of days,
ARISS will be performing a
series of tests using our
APRS capability through the
standard 145.825 MHz APRS
frequency. The crew will be
periodically shutting down
the radio and swapping
cables, so ARISS can
troubleshoot the radio
system and the cabling.”
Bauer said precise swap
times will depend on crew
availability and expected
the tests to run through
sometime on March 3.
“We cannot guarantee that
these troubleshooting tests
will resolve the radio
issue,” Bauer said. “But we
encourage ARISS APRS
operations in this time
span.”
Bauer said that if the
tests are unsuccessful, “a
contingency task” has been
green-lighted for a March 5
spacewalk (EVA). “This EVA
task would return the ARISS
cabling to the original
configuration prior to the
January 27 EVA,” he
explained, noting that a
contingency task will only
be performed if time allows.
Bauer asked that APRS
users not send “no contact”
emails or social media
responses, “as this will
overwhelm the ARISS team.”
“But, if you definitely
hear the packet system
working or are able to
connect through it, let us
know the date, time, and
grid square of the
occurrence,” he added.
Approaches to Tackle Noise
Problems Vary, Remedies Elusive
RF noise is a frequent
discussion topic among radio
amateurs. A proliferation of
electronics has cluttered
and complicated the noise
environment; it’s not just
power lines anymore. Unless
isolated from civilization,
most hams experience RF
interference (RFI) —
sometimes without even
realizing it, although
spectrum scopes on modern
transceivers make RF noise
much more apparent. Various
approaches to address the
apparently worsening noise
floor have been taken around
the world, some addressing
lax regulation.
“We all want to enhance
our ability to copy the weak
ones by increasing our
signal-to-noise ratio,” Alan
Higbie, K0AV, said in his
March/April NCJ
article, “Tracking RFI with
an SDR One Source at a
Time.” He suggests practical
methods for individual radio
amateurs to improve their
own noise environment. “We
can do that by reducing the
noise on each band that we
operate. Lowering the noise
floor increases the relative
signal strength of weak
signals. Those in typical
residential environments
find that locating and
eliminating RFI sources is a
never-ending process. It is
much like weeding a garden.”
The International Amateur
Radio Union (IARU)
warns against complacency.
“Radio amateurs cannot sit
back, because even if the
desired noise limits are
agreed, there are many rogue
manufacturers and dealers
who will happily sell
noise-generating devices,
leaving out filter circuits
to cut costs,” IARU said in
a statement. IARU has urged
member-societies to get
involved.
The FCC Technological
Advisory Council (TAC)
— a Commission advisory
group —
initiated an inquiry
in 2016 looking into changes
and trends to the radio
spectrum noise floor to
determine whether noise is
increasing and, if so, by
how much. The TAC had
encouraged the FCC to
undertake a comprehensive
noise study in 1998, and
cautioned the FCC against
implementing new spectrum
management techniques or
initiatives without first
concluding one. In 2017, the
FCC Office of Engineering
and Technology (OET) invited
comments on a series of
(TAC) spectrum-management
questions. ARRL, in its
comments, took the
opportunity to strongly urge
the FCC to reinstate the
2016 TAC noise floor study,
which, ARRL asserted, was
terminated before it even
got started. ARRL urged the
FCC to “depart from the
traditional regulatory
model” that placed limits
only on transmitters and
called for “a ‘holistic’
approach to transmitter and
receiver performance.”
Greg Lapin, N9GL,
represents ARRL on the TAC
and chairs the ARRL RF
Safety Committee. “Perhaps
the best result that we
obtained was an indication
that illegal devices, mainly
LED lights, were in
circulation, and the
Enforcement Bureau agreed to
look into it,” he told ARRL.
“We never heard what they
found out, but recently, I
was buying some LED bulbs
over the internet from a
site in Texas, and they were
selling non-FCC approved
lights — and didn’t seem to
care.” Lapin said his
complaint went nowhere, and
the TAC’s focus has been
nudged in the direction of
addressing 5G issues.
MARS Volunteers Recognized
with Gold-Level President's
Volunteer Service Award
A dozen US Army Military
Auxiliary Radio System
(MARS) volunteers have been
honored with gold-level
recognition for the
President’s Volunteer
Service Award for 2020.
They are Bob Mims,
WA1OEZ; Ron Tomo, KE2UK;
Mark Bary, N4EOC; Billy
Pearson, KO4XT; Dave Bock,
W8OHS; Bob Baker, K5LLF;
John Monson, WB0PLW; Gary
Geissinger, WA0SPM; Brian
Handy, W8JBT; Bliss Wheeler,
W7RUG; Jim Hamilton, K4QDF,
and Daniel Wolff, KA7AGN.
Each award recipient
receives a letter signed by
the President of the United
States, a certificate of
achievement, and a
presidential volunteer
service lapel pin. Volunteer
awards are based on the
certifying organization’s
recommendation and the
number of documented
volunteer hours for the
year.
BBC Monitoring Service in
1941
In 1941 British Pathe
produced a newsreel about the
radio monitoring work carried
out by the BBC
"Many of
you listen in to foreign
broadcasts and listening in
Britain is free, but when you
switch off you needn't worry
that what comes in over the air
isn't being checked and reported
to the right quarter. It is. The
BBC has taken on many new jobs
in wartime and one of them is to
keep a sleepless watch night and
day on the broadcasts of the
world."
"Every twenty
four hours we pick up and record
something like 500,00 words,
from hundreds of different
transmitters, friendly, neutral
and enemy in a score of
different languages. This
is done by our monitoring
service working in close
collaboration with government
departments."
The
newsreel features one of the BBC
monitoring huts and shows the
National HRO receivers and wax
cylinder recorders.
Watch ENGLAND:
Monitoring of BBC radio
broadcasts (1941)
WEDNESDAY EDITION: MRI
on the schedule to confirm
whether I have a partial or full
tear of the rotator cuff and
associated muscles. It looks
like day surgery is in the near
future, could be a lot worse, no
complaints here....

Radio station in Antarctica in
the good old days...
Moldova Peace Corps to
Sponsor March 3 Amateur Radio on
the International Space Station
Contact
An Amateur Radio on the
International Space Station
(ARISS)
contact between youngsters
and youth in Moldova and an
International Space Station
(ISS) crew member is set for
March 3. The Moldova Peace
Corps (MPC) is the hosting
organization, and 90
students (aged 10 – 18) from
a consortium of educational
institutions, rural schools,
and libraries from nine
Moldovan villages will
participate.
MPC promotes economic and
civic development with a
particular focus on
developing local resources
in rural and suburban
communities. Another focus
of MPC is to provide youth
in Moldovan villages with
access to STEM opportunities
and build capacity among
local teachers/librarians to
implement STEM activities in
their curricula.
During the multipoint
telebridge contact, students
will take turns asking
questions of astronaut Mike
Hopkins, KF5LJG. ARISS team
member David Payne, NA7V, in
Oregon will serve as the
relay amateur radio station.
In support of this
contact, the MPC partnered
with the staff at the Centre
of Excellence for Space
Sciences and Technologies
within the Technical
University of Moldova (UTM),
the US Peace Corps Volunteer
Coordinator, and the
participating schools and
libraries. The contact will
be livestreamed via the
MPC and
UTM
Facebook pages.
Ofcom speedily respond to
report of interference to
licence-exempt devices
Ofcom sent an engineer out
just 30 minutes after receiving
a report of interference to
unprotected licence-exempt
devices, they say they treated
the case as 'high priority'
Ofcom say:
Car key
fobs, like lots of other
everyday technology, use radio
spectrum to operate. On rare
occasions, faulty or
unauthorised equipment can
interfere with nearby technology
and prevent it from working
properly – such as in the case
of these customers’ fobs.
Ofcom’s Spectrum Management
Centre, based in Baldock,
Hertfordshire, provides a
24-hour service to industry and
to members of the public, by
monitoring the radio spectrum.
This service also allows people
to report radio interference.
On Friday 26 February, an
officer from Hertfordshire
Police contacted us to make us
aware of the problems at the
supermarket car park.
Due
to the nature and scale of the
problem, we assigned this as a
high priority case, and sent out
a local engineer who was soon on
the scene to investigate the
problem.
Within 30
minutes, our spectrum engineer
arrived at the car park to
investigate the problem. To do
this, we use a spectrum analyser
– a piece of equipment which
measures the airwaves and
detects any radio signal which
shouldn’t be there. However, at
that particular moment the
problem wasn’t actually
happening, and customers were
able to lock and unlock their
vehicles successfully. So, we
asked staff at the supermarket
to get in touch if any more
customers reported further
issues over the weekend.
Read the full Ofcom story at
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/features-and-news/spectrum-mystery-leaves-shoppers-stuck-in-car-park
Saint Petersburg special
event
Look for special event
callsign R125PR from to be
active between March 1-31st.
Activity is to honor the world's
first radiogram ever sent.
The special callsign was
requested by the "Association of
Radio Amateurs of St.
Petersburg" to commemorate the
125th anniversary of wireless
signal transmission demo.
On March 24, 1896, Alexander
Popov completed first ever radio
transmission at the Russian
Physical and Chemical Society of
Saint-Petersburg Imperial
University. The radiogram
consisting of two words "Henrich
Herz" transcended a distance of
250 meters. Alexander Popov was
present when indescribable
exhilaration seized the audience
after the words were received,
decoded and chalked out on the
blackboard. This was the world's
first transmission of an
intelligible text by wireless
telegraphy.
QSL via R1AU.
PJ4G Radio House on the air
Marty, W1MD, will be active
as PJ4A from the 'PJ4G Radio
House' on Bonaire (SA-006, WLOTA
LH-1279) during ARRL DX SSB
Contest (March 6-7th) as a
Single-Op/Single-Band (20 or
15m) entry.
Outside the contest, Marty
will be active as PJ4/W1MD. QSL
PJ4A via K4BAI or LoTW.
QSL PJ4/W1MD via his home
callsign. Check out the "PJ4G
Radio House" at:
http://www.pj4g.com

MY
FIRST CELL PHONE- W0RW
A long time ago, before today's
cellular telephones they had
Mobile Radio Telephones or Car
Phones. In most cities there was
only one cell (Transmitter
Tower) per frequency so that
frequencies (Called Channels)
had to be shared by all users.
That meant there could not be a
whole lot of people on each
channel. Cellular systems now
reuse channels by using
directional antenna’s and low
antenna elevations sSo more
people have access to the
spectrum.
Access was
very limited then and the
service was used mostly by
Doctors and Lawyers who could
afford the monthly rentals ($420
per month, adjusted for
inflation). The Telephone
Company really liked those
people who got the service and
rented the radio telephone
equipment. Anyone who wanted to
use their own personal equipment
was put on a long waiting list.
The FCC, however, made a
special provision for people who
wanted to use their own
equipment, so the Telephone
Company had to give service to
some of them. When you started
this process you had to request
an ‘Intent to Provide Service’
letter from your Telephone
Company. That could take a year
without a Priority Use Category,
like being a Doctor. A regular
person got the lowest Category
7; Red Cross, Doctors, etc. got
Category 1. I had to get a Red
Cross authorization letter to
qualify. After I got my Letter
of Intent from the Telephone
Company I had to send it to the
FCC to complete my application
for a Domestic Public Land
Mobile Radio Service License for
my radio. There were also a few
application and registration
fees that go along with setting
it all up. Another year could go
by. My license was finally
granted, KG6685, in 1963. That
allowed me to operate on the
Telephone Company frequencies of
43.38 MHz and 157.89 MHz (2
different units). The FCC Called
those the “ZM” and “YJ”
Channels. (There were 10 – Low
Band Channels, 11 VHF Channels,
and 6 UHF Channels In 1964). The
equipment had to be “Type
Accepted”, Tuned and labeled by
an FCC Commercial Radio
technician, be narrow banded and
sometimes using crystal ovens.
I had to send my FCC
license back to the Telephone
Company with my final
application and they then issued
me my Telephone Number, like YJ
54321, and ZM 12345, You didn't
use your FCC Call Sign.
After that using the phone using
the Manual Telephone Service was
easy, you would push the PTT and
the “Mobile Service Operator”
would come on, then you would
give her your Phone number. Then
you would ask her to call the
number of the person you wanted
to speak to. She would dial, it
would ring, and if answered you
would be connected. All that
with 30 to 60-mile ranges for
only $65 per month in 2020
dollars. (Plus a little extra
charge, $2.50 per minute in 2020
dollars, if you exceeded the
free 30 minutes of air time per
month). The elite users had the
Improved Mobile Telephone
Service (IMTS), with multiple
channels and a ‘Rotary Dial’
control head.
I had 2
Phones in my car so I could say:
“Hold on my other phone is
ringing’’. I was actually able
to rent my ‘Comm Car’ out to an
Aerospace Company for some
communication links from the
Edwards Air Force Base. That
helped pay the bills.
My
First radio was a Motorola 140D
for 43 MHz and a Motorola FHTRU
Handi-Talkie for 157 MHz, ¼
watt. It was modified to make it
full duplex by jumpering the
receiver filaments ‘On’ so the
receiver would be ‘On’ during
transmit and just using one 17”
whip antenna. When you have a
full duplex radio on a repeater
system like that you can hear
yourself so it becomes
immediately obvious when you get
into a bad location and finding
a ‘Hot Spot” gives the system a
4X range. I replaced that radio
with a Motorola HT-200, 1Watt,
all transistorized Handi-Talkie.
It was called the ‘Brick”. It
worked on the YJ Channel in
almost every city in the USA but
I could not make it operate full
duplex.
My regular
vehicle Radio Telephone had a
Western Electric 106A tone
decoder, It used a delicate
rotary relay to decode the
ring-out tones that the
Telephone Company used to call
you. The AFSK tones were very
slow and could easily be decoder
by ear. I could decode incoming
calls by ear when using my
handi-talkies. The Western
Electric decoder could blow the
auto horn or just display a
‘Call Waiting’ light on the
control head. The Mobile
Telephone operator would hold on
to your call information when
you called back. If you wanted
to call some mobile unit in a
distant city, you had to call
your Operator and ask for the
Long Distance Operator, Then ask
her to call the Mobile Service
Operator in that distant city,
She would then call the mobile.
It really didn’t take very long.
There was no nationwide calling,
you had to know where your
friend was to call him. There
were never any robo calls.
When several of the Red
Cross mobiles were active at the
same time they could all talk
Car-to-Car plus one connection
to a land line if desired. These
were mostly all Amateur Radio
Operators using the Public
Telephone System for the Red
Cross because there was only one
VHF AM amateur repeater in the
area at that time. For local
disaster operations we also used
the Red Cross frequency 47.42
MHz.
Generally speaking
we were to make disaster
assessments, see that a disaster
shelter was opened and find the
shelter manager. Then make sure
that he could communicate with
headquarters. After an
earthquake in 1970, 20,000
people were evacuated and about
to be flooded by a Dam break.
The shelter I was at had 1000
people but they had no drinking
water. They slept in the
gymnasium but every after-shock
woke them all up. They had pay
phones that were inoperative
because they were jammed with
quarters.
TUESDAY EDITION: I have
an appt. with a surgeon today on
my birthday, rotator cuff. I
have already had one done so now
I will have a matched
set....Windy as hell on the
island this morning, 60mph guts
but we haven't lost power
yet.....GET A FREE NEWSLETTER
from Rick- KM1G and it's
good one, just send him
an email request and you will be on his
mailing list,
ka1hbh@gmail.com.
Moldova Peace Corps to
Sponsor March 3 Amateur Radio on
the International Space Station
Contact
An Amateur Radio on the
International Space Station
(ARISS)
contact between youngsters
and youth in Moldova and an
International Space Station
(ISS) crew member is set for
March 3. The Moldova Peace
Corps (MPC) is the hosting
organization, and 90
students (aged 10 – 18) from
a consortium of educational
institutions, rural schools,
and libraries from nine
Moldovan villages will
participate.
MPC promotes economic and
civic development with a
particular focus on
developing local resources
in rural and suburban
communities. Another focus
of MPC is to provide youth
in Moldovan villages with
access to STEM opportunities
and build capacity among
local teachers/librarians to
implement STEM activities in
their curricula.
During the multipoint
telebridge contact, students
will take turns asking
questions of astronaut Mike
Hopkins, KF5LJG. ARISS team
member David Payne, NA7V, in
Oregon will serve as the
relay amateur radio station.
In support of this
contact, the MPC partnered
with the staff at the Centre
of Excellence for Space
Sciences and Technologies
within the Technical
University of Moldova (UTM),
the US Peace Corps Volunteer
Coordinator, and the
participating schools and
libraries. The contact will
be livestreamed via the
MPC and
UTM
Facebook pages.
WSPR Rowing Atlantic sea!
Maurice f6ciu says: Yes I did
it!
Guirec Soudee, after 74
days at sea and over 2,900
nautical miles of rowing,
between Canary Isl & Carabbean
Isl I finally arrived this
Friday February 26th in St
Barthélemy.
On board there was an
experimental WSPR beacon of less
than one watt on 10 Mhz and the
antenna a shortened mobil
Diamond. the design of F4GOH &
F6CIU worked wonderfully
throughout the crossing despite
two capsizes, antenna and beacon
flips being submerged for
several minutes.
The experience should be
repeated in next summer between
Cape Cod USA axis to Brest in
Brittany, France.
https://www.guirecsoudee.com/blog
https://hamprojects.wordpress.com/2019/06/02/wspr-beacon/
MONDAY EDITION: One more
month of winter, I can't wait to
be able to open the windows and
smell the ocean...I sold our
boat last summer and need to buy
another soon. We are looking for
a 19-21 foot Whaler style open
deck concept boat. I think I
will start searching for a boat
that has been trailered to fresh
water lakes....I never liked
golfing....Mr.
Potato head survives the
left wing pussies....Here is
something to think about. What
happens when you donate blood
now? Is it checked for Covid
virus? Is it checked which
vaccine was taken?.........

Hacking a transmitter -
1920s style
Back in the 1920s, when
electronic breadboading often
used a real wood breadboard,
swiped from the kitchen in the
dark of night, a limited supply
of commercial electronic
components inspired ham radio
hobbyists to roll their own
capacitors, inductors, switches,
and whatever else was needed to
build a transmitter.
Today, Andy Flowers, call sign
K0SM, recreates early
transmitters using the same
techniques and components that
were used back in the day, and
he uses them on the air.
Andy shows how it's done in
this video from the
Antique Wireless Museum
Tim Hunkin rides again with
The Secret Life Of Components
Long-time readers may
remember one of the occasional
Engineering Heroes series that
focused on the British engineer,
inventor and sometime TV
presenter Tim Hunkin, known for
his intricate creations, unusual
arcade machines, and Secret Life
Of Machines TV series’ from the
years around 1990. It seems
we’re now in for a fresh treat
as he’s returning to our screens
via YouTube with a new series.
The Secret Life Of Components
will be his attempt to pass on
the accumulated knowledge of a
long career that most of us
would have given our eyeteeth
for.
There will be eight
videos in the series which
launches on the 4th of March,
and judging by the snippets in
the preview video below the
break he’ll be covering a wide
range including springs,
adhesives, chains, belts,
switches, and much more. His
entertaining style and
beautifully built working models
are guaranteed to make for some
very good content while giving a
unique view into the workshop of
a true master of the craft.
As an appetiser it’s worth
reading our profile of Tim
Hunkin. It features a visit to
his Novelty Automation arcade in
London’s Holborn, which should
be an essential stop for any
travelling Hackaday reader
finding themselves in that city.
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/28/tim-hunkin-rides-again-with-the-secret-life-of-components/
Spring Red Cross Emergency
Communications Drill Set
The spring 2021 Red
Cross Nationwide Emergency
Communications Winlink Drill
will be held on May 8, which
is
World Red Cross and
Red Crescent Day 2021.
Details and instructions
are available.
Sign up for email
updates. A
head of the May
nationwide exercise, the
American Red Cross (ARC)
Emergency Communications
training group will continue
its Winlink Thursdays
training sessions on March
11 and April 8.
Radio Emma Toc World Service
- schedule
Programme Contents - A look
at the value of radio,
Scandinavian Weekend Radio,
Radio Sweden's 'The Saturday
Show', & lots of hellos to
listeners, - followed by a 30
minute trial vintage music
programme 'The Wireless Years'.
Ways to listen...
Radio Emma Toc World Service -
programme no. 11 - March 2021
You can listen online -
www.emmatoc.com - visit the
'World Service' page.
You can listen to our
shortwave or MW or FM broadcasts
via our relay partners as
follows:
WRMI - Radio
Miami International - 9955kHz -
covering Latin America (&
beyond)
Tues 18:00
EasternTime / 23:00 UTC and Wed
20:00 Eastern Time / 01:00
(Thurs) UTC
WRMI - Radio
Miami International - 5950kHz -
covering Eastern North America
(& far beyond)
Tues 16:00
Eastern Time / 21:00 UTC and
Sunday 21:00 EasternTime / 02:00
(Monday) UTC
International Women's Day
contest on Monday, March 8
Finland's SRAL reports
International Women's Day will
be celebrated in the spirit of a
relaxed race.
The contest
will take place on March 8 from
0000-2359 Finnish Time
(2200-2159 GMT)
The
contest will be on the HF bands
using CW or SSB modes with up to
100 watts output.
The
contest rules are at
https://www.sral.fi/2021/02/12/kansainvalinen-naistenpaivan-kilpailu-maanantaina-8-3-2021/
ICQPodcast - Progressive
changes at the ARRL
In this episode, Martin
(M1MRB) is joined by Leslie
Butterfield G0CIB, Dan
Romanchik KB6NU and Edmund
Spicer M0MNG to discuss the
latest Amateur / Ham Radio
news. Colin (M6BOY) rounds
up the news in brief and in
this episode’s features is
in an interview with ARRL
David Minster NA2AA, and the
President, Rick Roderick
K5UR as they discuss changes
for the ARRL with Frank
Howell K4FMH.
ICQ
AMATEUR/HAM RADIO PODCAST
DONORS
We would like
to thank Tony Hickson
(M5OTA), Mark Fairchild
(2E0MFZ) and Richard Dalton
and our monthly and annual
subscription donors for
keeping the podcast advert
free. To donate, please
visit -
http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate
News stories include: -
• Concord Student Wins
Congressional App Challenge
• ARRL Reject Additional
VEC's
• ARRL to consider
covering young members
license fee
• German
Radio Hams Tackling RF Noise
Pollution
• UK Amateur
Radio Operator Celebrates
100th Birthday
• The
Royal Australian Air Force -
100 Year Centenary. VK100AF
& VI100AF
• Light Up 2
Meters Night, an FM Simplex
Event
• ARRL CEO David
Minster (NA2AA) to keynote
QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo
The ICQPodcast can be
downloaded from
http://www.icqpodcast.com
WEEKEND EDITION: Check
this out, a
map of the world showing all
the radio stations and the link
are have. You can listen to
stations all over the
world....How to grow
amateur radio video...Quick
thinking woman solves the
wear a mask problem....Marines
to honor the
M40 sniper rifle....Take a
trip down a
bygone era at this new
museum in the city, which houses
over 100 radio sets, some from
as far back as 1907....Space
weather woman
report...IC-7300 Firmware V1.40
has just been released. This is
quite a big one. The download
and release notes are on the
Icom Japan website, along with
a release document. ...Acom
talks about their
great amplifiers....
Video Documents Removal,
Preservation of 250 kW Voice of
America Transmitter
With the former Voice of
America Delano relay site in
Central California scheduled
for eventual demolition for
resale, the Collins
Collectors Association (CCA),
in association with the
Antique Wireless Association
(AWA),
came up with a plan in 2014
(working, among others, with
past ARRL Midwestern
Division Director Rod
Blocksome, K0DAS, a former
Collins engineer), to
retrieve one of the Collins
821A-1 250 kW HF
transmitters from the site
and put it on display at the
AWA museum in Bloomfield,
New York.
The Delano site, known as
DL-8, went on the air in
1944 with a 170-foot rhombic
antenna. The Collins 821 A-1
transmitter was autotuned
and could shift frequencies
between 3.95 and 26.5 MHz in
20 seconds. The transmitter
and its associated
components represent serious
heavy metal. The Delano
site, now owned by the
General Services
Administration (GSA),
remains with antennas still
standing and buildings in
place and demolition on
hold, because it was
discovered to be the habitat
for an endangered species of
shrew.
A
video presentation
featuring Dennis Kidder,
W6DQ, describes and
illustrates the entire
removal and relocation
effort and offers some
background on the VOA. On
the continental US, the only
remaining VOA site is the
Edward R. Murrow Greenville
Transmitting Site in North
Carolina.
Foundations of Amateur Radio
How many hops in a
jump?Amateur
radio lives and dies with the
ionosphere. It's drilled into
you when you get your license,
it's talked about endlessly, the
sun impacts on it, life is bad
when the solar cycle is low and
great when it's not. There's sun
spots, solar K and A indices,
flux, different ionosperic bands
and tools online that help you
predict what's possible and how
likely it is depending on the
time of day, the frequency, your
location and the curent state of
the sun. If that's not enough,
the geomagnetic field splits a
radio wave in the ionosphere
into two separate components,
ordinary and extraordinary
waves.
All that complexity aside,
there's at least one thing we
can all agree on. A radio wave
can travel from your station,
bounce off the ionosphere, come
back to earth and do it again.
This is known as a hop or a
skip. If conditions are right,
you can hop all the way around
the globe.
I wanted to know how big a
hop might be. If you know that
it's a certain distance, then
you can figure out if you can
talk to a particular station or
not, because the hop might be on
the earth, or it might be in the
ionosphere. Simple enough right?
My initial research unearthed
the idea that a hop was 4000 km.
So, if you were attempting to
talk to a station at 2000 km or
at 6000 km you couldn't do that
with a hop of 4000 km.
If you've been on HF, we both
know that's not the case.
If you need proof, which you
really should be asking for, you
should check out what the
propagation looks like for any
FT8 station, or any WSPR beacon
over time and you'll notice that
it's not 4000 km.
Just like the crazy network
of interacting parameters
associated with propagation, the
distance of a hop can vary, not
a little, but a lot.
In 1962, in the Journal of
Geophysical Research D.B.
Muldrew and R.G. Maliphant
contributed an article titled:
"Long-Distance One-Hop
Ionospheric Radio-Wave
Propagation". They found that in
temperate regions such a hop
might be 7500 km and in
equatorial regions even 10,000
km.
I'm mentioning this because
this was based on observations
and measurements.
They used frequency sweeps
from 2 to 49 MHz though they
called them Mega Cycles, using
100 kHz per second, that is,
over the duration of a second,
the frequency changed by 100
kHz, so each sweep took nearly 8
minutes using only 15 kilowatts,
so substantial gear, not to
mention expense and
availability.
Oh, computers, yes, they used
those too. A three tonne
behemoth called an IBM 650, mind
you, that's only the base unit,
consisting of a card reader,
power supply and a console
holding a magnetic drum unit.
You know I'm going somewhere
with this right?
Today, you can do the same
measurements with a $5 computer
and a $20 receiver. For a
transmitter, any HF capable
radio will do the trick, though
you might not be transmitting
long if you stray outside the
amateur bands. For power, 5
Watts is plenty to get the job
done.
My point is that there is a
debate around the future of our
hobby and why modes like FT8 are
such a controversial topic in
some communities.
I'm here to point out that
since that publication in 1962
our hobby has made some progress
and we can improve on the work
done by people who came before
us. We could build a
glob-spanning real-time
propagation visualisation tool,
we already have the data and
modes like FT8 keep feeding in
more.
If you're inclined, you could
even make such a plot in
real-time for your own station.
So, how long is a hop?
You'll just have to find out.
I'm Onno VK6FLAB
TV show looks at
disappearance of radio ham
On Monday, March 1, at 9pm
AEDT (1000 GMT) the Channel 9 TV
show Under Investigation
covers the unexplained
disappearance of both radio
amateur Russell Hill VK3VZP
and a friend missing since March
20, 2020
Russell was
camping in the remote
Wonnangatta Valley and his last
amateur radio contact was with
Rob Ashlin VK3BEZ at 6pm on
March 20, he has not been heard
from since.
On March 21
the campsite was found with the
tent burned to the ground and Mr
Hill's Toyota Land Cruiser
sitting next to it.
Information on the show is at
https://9now.nine.com.au/a-current-affair/missing-victorian-campers-carol-clay-and-russell-hill-third-party-likely-involved-in-pairs-disappearance-from-wonnangatta-valley/a7c69f5d-b183-443b
-889a-d13e43a41314
OI activity day on
Friday March 5
Finland's SRAL reports
military radio amateurs
using the OI callsign prefix
will be on-the-air on
Friday, March 5
OI
is a rare prefix, there are
only about 35 stations with
an OI callsign and a special
ham radio award is available
for working contacts with
the OI prefixed stations.
To be eligible for the
award, stations need to work
contacts with different OI
prefixed stations as
follows:
• Stations
located outside of Finland
need to work five OI
stations
• Those who
are in Finland need to work
ten contacts.
OI
Award
https://sirad.fi/oi-award/
SRAL
https://tinyurl.com/IARU-Finland
ARRL Interview Explains
Background of Ham Radio in Space
Film Short
Josh Tanner, the
Australian filmmaker who
produced the thriller
Decommissioned
by Perception Pictures, has
explained how he came up
with the idea to develop the
movie short. In the
approximately 6-minute film,
SuitSat returns in the
future to haunt
International Space Station
commander “Diaz,” played by
Joey Vieira, who spots
SuitSat, the surplus Russian
Orlan spacesuit that
was turned into an amateur
radio satellite several
years ago by Amateur Radio
on the International Space
Station (ARISS).
An exclusive ARRL
video interview
premiering on Saturday,
February 27, brings together
Tanner, who directed the
sci-fi horror film about an
eerie ham-radio-in-space
reencounter, and
ARISS-International Chair
Frank Bauer, KA3HDO. In the
interview, conducted by ARRL
volunteer Josh Nass, KI6NAZ,
of the popular YouTube
channel
Ham Radio Crash
Course, Tanner
described the uniquely
creative and technical
aspects of the filmmaking
involved in Decommissioned and
its connection with the
real-life SuitSat-1.
“My wife, Jade, who is
also a co-writer of this
short film, and I are both
really obsessed with space,
and we discovered SuitSat on
Wikipedia,” Tanner said in
the interview. “It was an
initial sort of two-pronged
reaction. One, this is
genius. It’s amazing that
they did this; I’d never
heard this before. And the
second one was, this is
kinda creepy…that they had
what looks like a stranded,
dead astronaut floating
around the Earth…and there
were voices of children
being transmitted from it.”
SuitSat-1
transmitted a voice message,
“This is SuitSat-1 RS0RS!”,
in several languages, plus
telemetry and a slow-scan TV
image on an 8-minute cycle
as it orbited Earth.
Tanner said a lot of the
films he produces involve
"pieces of history that are
rather quite odd or
interesting that maybe a lot
of people don’t know about.”
Bauer described the
background of the 2006
SuitSat project, which
involved ARISS’s
relationship with Sergey
Samburov, RV3DR. Samburov
was “the initial brainchild”
behind the SuitSat-1
concept, and ARISS ran with
it, Bauer recounted.
“We had 3 weeks to pull
it all together and get it
ready for launch,” Bauer
said, and that included
getting safety approvals.
SuitSat-1 operated for
about 2 weeks, and a contest
of sorts evolved to guess
when it would burn up in the
atmosphere, which wasn’t
until about 6 months later.
A SuitSat-2 was
launched from the ISS
several years later.
Tanner said the
Decommissioned script
was written about 3 years
ago, but creating the
realistic atmosphere and
sets involved a number of
complexities, which was
“very expensive,” he
revealed. A big push toward
using video game engine
technology in feature-film
development made it
possible. Decommissioned
was produced using a game
engine called Unreal
Engine, which was also
used to produce the TV show The
Mandalorian.
Grab your popcorn and
avoid a spoiler. ARRL
recommends viewing the
short film
before watching the
45-minute interview. The
interview premieres on
ARRL’s
YouTube channel,
Saturday, February 27, at
1600 UTC.
ARRL reminds interested
schools and educational
organizations in the US that
the latest
window
to submit proposals to host
scheduled ham radio contacts
with an ISS crew member
opened on February 15.
Contacts would be scheduled
January 1 – June 30, 2022.
Proposals are due to ARISS
by 0759 UTC on April 1.
In the US, ARRL is a
partner in the ARISS
program, along with AMSAT,
NASA, and the ISS National
Lab, which has kept amateur
radio on the air from the
International Space Station
for 20 years.
Wildlife Outnumber
Participants in Winter
Yellowstone VHF Radio Rally
Wyoming and southern
Montana hams belonging
to the north Yellowstone
Amateur Radio Club and
Park County Amateur
Radio Emergency Service
(ARES®) took to the
wilderness in late
January during heavy
snow to take part in an
emergency preparedness
exercise. The groups
have about 15 members in
all; many more bison and
elk roam the roads than
do hams.
The critical winter
duty for North
Yellowstone radio
amateurs is deployment
to remote locations of
winter emergencies. To
train for these
responses, the members
devised the VHF Radio
Relay, a radio scavenger
hunt designed to get
members out to remote
road locations where
winter emergencies may
require radio
communications support.
The group uses the
Eagle’s Nest repeater
located at 8,000 feet on
Electric Peak southwest
of Gardiner, Montana —
the north entrance to
Yellowstone National
Park. The repeater
covers the northern
one-third of the vast
park and southern half
of Park County, Montana.
Participants
rigorously observed
COVID-19 precautions.
Participating hams
received two pages of
instructions. The first
contained directions for
completing their
call-out assignment and
listed 15 locations that
required hams to deploy
to the far reaches of
the radio coverage area.
The second page
consisted of a map. Only
three roads are in the
area, and conditions on
one dirt road are
typically difficult.
Each route had five
locations along the way
to the terminal
checkpoint. The 15
widely spaced locations
guaranteed that no
operator could visit all
of them.
Each location was
assigned a tactical call
sign, and communicators
had to use GPS to verify
that they were in their
precise positions. At
all locations, hams
radioed net control to
have their location
verified before moving
to the next location.
On two roads, an
interpretive sign stood
at the last check-in
point. Participating
hams had to call in from
the sign and were given
instructions on how to
find a code word hidden
on the sign to verify
their location — for
example, the seventh
word in the third
paragraph — and relay it
to net control. Each
participant had a
different code word.
Locations were chosen
so that hams needed to
plan their route
strategy — ideally
before leaving the
starting point, where
odometer readings were
recorded. Directions
included a safety
warning about bison and
elk on the road, and bad
driving conditions due
to snow. All departed at
9 AM and were to be back
at the starting point at
11:30 AM. A prize was
awarded to the ham who
visited the most
locations with the
lowest mileage. First
place went to Doug
MacCartney, K7GRZ, and
second place to Reve
Carberry, KX4LZ. Jim
Halfpenny, K9YNP, served
as net control. —
Thanks to Park County
Emergency Coordinator
and ARRL PIO Jim
Halfpenny, K9YNP

YOU HAVE TO BE SHITTING
ME...
It's time we discussed height
privilege and how it
disproportionately affects
transgender, people of color and
fuels rape culture. You see,
although there are no physical
or biological differences
between men and women, because
sex and gender are just social
constructs pushed by the
patriarchy, men are generally
taller than women, so when a man
is very tall, the proximity of
his penis is closer to the mouth
of nearby shorter women. Women
are then forced to "speak into
the mic", every time they say
something, and if they are
educating a straight male by
yelling at him, the mouth is
open even wider which risks
exposure to bodily fluids such
as semen or perhaps even urine
if they're from Sweden or
Germany. In fact women speaking
to such tall men simulates oral
sex in a variety of ways, but
NONE of them are consensual. We
feminists call this P.I.F.S or
"Penis in Face Syndrome". At a
recent feminist conference,
women were finally given
equality, and height privilege
removed by use of platform
shoes, which we are currently
lobbying to have made mandatory
on college campus. We are also
intending to push thin privilege
in future and force fit people
to walk around campus wearing
heavy weighted bags, so they
know just how difficult it is
for cellulite-diverse people.
THURSDAY EDITION: How to
use tall skinny trees for an
antenna....Fighter
pilots pass out but software
saves them....A kit to inject an
RFID chip, but why?...Apple
to
pair up with KIA and produce
a car by 2024?....
CAN YOU GET THE COVID
SHOT IN YOUR ASS?
Could you get the benefits of a
COVID vaccine by having it
injected into your butt instead
of your arm, if for some reason
you wanted to do that and were
capable of finding a medical
professional who would do it?
Let’s get straight to the point
here: Yes. The COVID vaccine
would still work if you had it
injected in your butt. But for
most people—not all
people, but most people—this
would be an anti-social thing to
do, and for more than the
obvious reason.
A posterior injection would
work, as Dr. Robert Amler
explains, because the available
COVID vaccines are
“intramuscular.” (Amler is the
dean of the School of Health
Sciences and Practice at New
York Medical College and a
former chief medical officer at
the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.) They will
function wherever there’s enough
muscle tissue to absorb them.
(The Pfizer vaccine dose is 0.3
milliliters of liquid; the
Moderna dose is 0.5
milliliters.) “From that tissue,
the body and, basically, the
bloodstream gradually passes it
around,” Amler says. “As it
passes around, the immune system
detects it and says hey, there’s
something here from someplace
else.”
Fry's Electronics shutting
down all stores, ending 36 years
as a big-box stop for tech
enthusiasts
Fry’s Electronic’s, the
big-box chain that was a
longtime, one-stop shop for tech
enthusiasts, is shutting down
after 36 years in business. The
company cited “changes in the
retail industry and the
challenges posed by the COVID-19
pandemic.”
Fry’s made the
announcement in a statement on
its website early Wednesday,
where all other content had
disappeared. But the writing had
been on the wall for at least
two years as empty store shelves
began to signal that the San
Jose, Calif.,-based company was
in trouble.
Fry’s
operated 31 stores across nine
states, including one in Renton,
south of Seattle — the only
Washington location. GeekWire
visited that store in October
2019 as internet reports began
to circulate that the chain may
be struggling in the age of
Amazon and increased online
shopping.
The
152,000-square-foot Renton store
was a sea of empty shelves at
the time, with very few
employees — or customers —
wandering departments ranging
from personal computers to
televisions to office furniture.
But a spokesman for Fry’s told
GeekWire back then that Fry’s
was “gearing up for the holiday
season” and that it was planning
to restock over the next several
weeks with no plans to liquidate
or close any stores.
Holding an extension cable to
power a CPU in a computer he was
fixing, customer Jordan Jones
told GeekWire in 2019 that Fry’s
was “the last bastion of
hardware shopping.”
He
said then that empty shelves
were a scary sign for
brick-and-mortar retail in
general. “They used to have all
these computer boxes stacked,”
he said, waving his arm from
floor to ceiling at scattered
boxes on shelves nearby.
Founded in 1985 in Sunnyvale,
Calif., Fry’s had been an
electronics institution for
decades, once boasting on its
website that it catered to the
high-tech professional and sold
more than 50,000 electronic
items in its stores.
As
rumors of the shut-down began
circulating on Twitter Tuesday
night, some shoppers shared
their appreciation for the
chain’s adherence to a bizarre
“theme” approach to each store’s
decor. While the Renton store
focused on regional history,
others had elaborate displays
tied to Egyptian history,
Atlantis, the Wild West, the
Gold Rush and more.
https://www.geekwire.com/2021/frys-electronics-shutting-stores-ending-36-years-big-box-stop-tech-enthusiasts/
Cherokee Challenge Flight -
London to Sydney the slow way
Join us on this amazing
adventure of a lifetime. Two
chaps, a light aircraft and an
HF radio piloting their way from
Blighty to Oz, the slow way!
Andy Hardy G1AJH (ex VK2CHA).
Their flight supported Oxfam in
the fight against poverty:
https://www.oxfam.org.uk/​
(Presentation given to Bury
Radio Society and Warrington
Amateur Radio Club)
https://www.facebook.com/CherokeeChallengeFlight/
"Whirlwind Boom" Emergency
Communications Exercise Set in
Northern Florida
The amateur radio
communications team of the
Florida Baptist Disaster
Relief has created a
multi-site radio
communications exercise
dubbed “Whirlwind
Boom,”
designed to bring together
volunteers and local
agencies across northern
Florida and throughout the
southeastern US. The 2-hour
drill is set for Friday,
March 19. Invitations have
gone out to Amateur Radio
Emergency Service (ARES®)
groups, county-level
emergency managers, state
communications experts, and
federal
SHARES
HF radio program
volunteers, and volunteers
taking part in the 2021
Florida Baptist Disaster
Relief on-site training the
following day.
The exercise scenario
involved tornadoes
coupled with the terrorist
bombing of the telephone
system, and large numbers of
displaced residents seeking
shelter. Only radio remains.
During the exercise,
volunteers will practice
transmitting formal reports
about the utility, water,
and safety situations in
their counties (Incident
Action Plan).
Many participants will
communicate across hundreds
of miles using portable
radio gear powered by car
batteries or small
generators. Simulated
outbound survivor messages
to friends and family will
also be sent by radio.
Participating groups will
receive secret messages
advising them of unexpected
handicaps that mimic what
might happen during an
actual disaster —
complicating their tasks.
Core capabilities
are mass care services and
operational communications.
Exercise objectives include
antenna deployment,
emergency power usage,
communications planning,
voice communication,
establishment of a command
net, preparing and handling
formal status reports,
tactical communications,
survivor message handling,
data communication, handling
resource requests, efficient
response times, promoting
interoperability, and
volunteer management.
-yhn brrThese
exercises are structured in
accordance with Department
of Homeland Security
training guidelines. For
more information,
contact
Gordon Gibby, KX4Z.
Affected Residents in Texas
ARRL Amateur Radio
Emergency Service (ARES®)
and American Red Cross
volunteers joined forces in
Texas under the ARRL/Red
Cross memorandum of
understanding in responding
to the situation resulting
from unseasonably frigid
weather. Kevin McCoy,
KF5FUZ, said the Red Cross
formally requested an ARES
activation in Texas to
address the effects of the
natural disaster, which
included a lack of drinking
water, power outages, fuel
shortages, and frozen
plumbing, among others. Red
Cross in Central Texas
supported more than 60
warming shelters at the
request of governmental
agencies.
“We made a special effort
to use Winlink email over
radio to get reports of
infrastructure problems and
unmet needs [and to]
communicate information
about warming centers,”
McCoy said. “I would say
that Winlink operators
attending local nets and
passing on information was
the most valuable
contribution in this unusual
and unprecedented disaster.
We had literally hundreds of
Winlink operators across
Texas who were trained and
ready. Some of these teams,
especially in counties that
are still suffering, may be
active with other served
agencies.”
Several teams deployed to
support emergency operations
centers (EOCs) in Bexar,
Brazos, Kerr, Travis, and
Williamson counties, he
said. “Some of these ARES
organizations were also
serving the needs of the
National Weather Service and
local government — as was
the case in Williamson
County,” McCoy added.
“Our effort in the start
of the activity was to focus
on folks with medical needs
who required power, and to
get those folks to safety,”
McCoy said. “Reports from
operators were passed to
Disaster Program Managers
and Disaster Action Teams
and to Red Cross Disaster
Mental Health personnel for
evaluation. Government
partners and citizens
provided transportation and
Red Cross provided hotel
rooms in areas with reliable
power to keep these citizens
safe while following COVID
protocols.”
An early report from
Texas Hill Country concerned
infrastructure failures in
public service communication
towers, which affected 911
calls in Mason County. This
was followed by loss of cell
towers in nearby counties.
“Those early reports really
gave us an idea of what we
were in for, and that was
the beginning of power
failure escalation in
Texas,” McCoy said.
Power outages have now
dropped from some 4 million
customers to some 100,000,
indicating the start of
recovery operations, with
damage assessment already
under way.
On February 20, Red Cross
made a formal stand-down
request to Texas ARES
sections from the Central
and South Texas Red Cross
Region. “Transportation,
communication, and internet
had restored sufficiently to
allow for that change of
status,” McCoy said. “We
made a call out to the 83
counties that we serve, and
did not receive any
requests. We did let all
Winlink operators know that
we would still monitor the
tactical addresses until the
disaster recovery was over.
We have had some
infrastructure and condition
reports after we sent the
stand-down.”
McCoy said some ARRL
Section Managers and local
Emergency Coordinators were
strongly encouraging their
teams to engage in their
communities as their radio
responsibilities decrease.
He cited SEC Greg Evans,
K5GTX, as “an excellent
example” of an SEC who has
been keeping his team both
well informed and well armed
with “how ARES/ARRL
operators can help best
through the phases of this
unprecedented event.”
Key issues remaining
include the prolonged power
outage and the freezing
weather that left Texas with
damaged water
infrastructure. “Things are
improving rapidly,” McCoy
said on February 22, “but
coupled with the loss of
transportation and people
being without water for
days, we have a huge need
for points of distribution
for water inventories and
additional water flowing
into the state.”
“We have a lot of work to
do,” said McCoy, who called
it, “a very frustrating
environment for
organizations that want to
help.”
“We all are getting a
lesson in the cascading
failures resulting from cold
and power outages.
Government, business, and
non-governmental
organizations are all
cooperating to help.”
WEDNESDAY EDITION:
Connecting a
modern radio to a legacy
amplifier.....Why am I not
surprised that dogs in Russia
are turning
pink and blue?.....There is
no shortage of dumbass
people...While planting a
tree, homeowners find a bunch of
of
firearms buried....
CAN
YOU HELP US?- My local
repeater hosts a 6pm net on
M-W-F on 145.130 in Gloucester,
MA and we have had 97 different
check-ins this year, could you
check in and say hi via
Echolink- W1GLO so we can break
the 100 check-in number. We have
topics to discuss and it is a
great bunch of low key
hams....please drop by! Topics
posted on the site. Regular
check-ins include ham from
England, Canada, and states all
over the US.
Ham Talk Live!
Episode 248 -- Building
the Big Ugly Balun
The "big ugly" might
be a famous 22 ounce
hamburger in
Indiana, but this
week on Ham Talk
Live! we're talking
big ugly baluns!
John Portune, W6NBC
will be on the show
to take your
questions about
building an ugly
(coiled coax) balun
and why they are
useful.
Website :
The "big ugly"
might be a
famous 22 ounce
hamburger in
Indiana, but
this week on Ham
Talk Live! we're
talking big ugly
baluns! John
Portune, W6NBC
will be on the
show to take
your questions
about building
an ugly (coiled
coax) balun and
why they are
useful.
Tune into Ham
Talk Live!
Thursday night
at 9 pm EST
(Friday 0200Z)
by going to
hamtalklive.com.
When the audio
player indicates
LIVE, just hit
the play
button!
If you miss the
show live, you
can listen on
demand anytime
also at
hamtalklive.com;
or a podcast
version is on
nearly all
podcast sites a
few minutes
after the live
show is over.
Some sites
include Apple
Podcasts, Google
Podcasts,
Spotify,
SoundCloud,
Stitcher,
Spreaker,
TuneIn, Vurbl,
and iHeart
Podcasts; and
it's also
available on
YouTube.
A replay is also
broadcast on
WTWW 5085 AM
shortwave near
Nashville, TN on
Saturday nights
at approximately
3:30 pm Eastern.
Be sure to CALL
in with your
questions and
comments by
calling
859-982-7373
live during the
call-in segment
of the show.
You can also
tweet your
questions before
or during the
show to
@HamTalkLive.
The concept of Ham Radio
originated over a hundred years
ago, and as of today, it is not
in an ideal position. You may
have already heard people talk
about how ham radio is dying,
and even though there is a lot
of truth to that, there are
still things that can be done to
save this community.
People who ruled amateur radio
have gotten old, and now the
young blood needs to step up to
keep the tradition going. The
good news is that in the past
couple of years many amateur
licenses have been issued and it
is being revived slowly. Since
the beginning of the coronavirus
pandemic, the demand for Ham
radios has also increased. Many
specialized online shops are
currently offering
CB radios for sale
under leading brands in the
industry.
STORY
Capstan winch central to
this all-band adjustable dipole
antenna
The perfect antenna is the
holy grail of amateur radio. But
antenna tuning is a game of
inches, and since the optimum
length of an antenna depends on
the frequency it’s used on, the
mere act of spinning the dial
means that every antenna design
is a compromise. Or perhaps not,
if you build this infinitely
adjustable capstan-winch dipole
antenna.
Dipoles are generally built
to resonate around the center
frequency of one band, and with
allocations ranging almost from
“DC to daylight”, hams often end
up with a forest of dipoles.
[AD0MZ]’s adjustable dipole
solves that problem, making the
antenna usable from the 80-meter
band down to 10 meters. To
accomplish this feat it uses
something familiar to any
sailor: a capstan winch.
The feedpoint of the antenna
contains a pair of 3D-printed
drums, each wound with a loop of
tinned 18-gauge antenna wire
attached to some Dacron cord.
These make up the
adjustable-length elements of
the antenna, which are strung
through pulleys suspended in
trees about 40 meters apart.
Inside the feedpoint enclosure
are brushes from an electric
drill to connect the elements to
a 1:1 balun and a stepper motor
to run the winch. As the wire
pays out of one spool, the
Dacron cord is taken up by the
other; the same thing happens on
the other side of the antenna,
resulting in a balanced
configuration.
We think this is a really
clever design that should make
many a ham happy across the
bands. We even see how this
could be adapted to other
antenna configurations, like the
end-fed halfwave we recently
featured in our “$50 Ham”
series.
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/23/capstan-winch-central-to-this-all-band-adjustable-dipole-antenna/
Kangaroo Island QSO
status
VK5KI (OC-139) QSL
STATUS. Grant, VK5GR,
reports: For those looking
for electronic confirmation
from the VK5KI activation on
Kangaroo Island (OC-139),
the LOTW records were
uploaded today (Feb. 15th)
and the blackout period for
ClubLog matching should be
ending also.
Thanks again to everyone
to gave us a call in January
2021. If you still want a
paper QSL card - OQRS is
open via my QSL Manager
Charles, M0OXO.
Youth on the Air will Make
Final Decision on Summer Camp in
April
Plans remain up in the
air for the Youth on the Air
(YOTA)
in the Americas summer camp,
tentatively set for July 11
– 16 in West Chester, Ohio.
“We know that changes in
the COVID-19 pandemic status
between now and July will
have an impact on our
decision to host the camp,”
2021 YOTA Americas Camp
Director Neil Rapp, WB9VPG,
said. “At this time, we are
still hopeful that hosting
the camp safely July 11 –
16, 2021 will be possible.
Should we not be able to
host the camp, we will let
everyone know with as much
notice as possible and
postpone it to 2022. Our
plan is to make the final
decision in the month of
April.”
ARRL CEO David Minster,
NA2AA, to Keynote QSO Today
Virtual Ham Expo
ARRL CEO David
Minster, NA2AA, will
keynote the
QSO Today Virtual Ham
Expo
March 13 – 14 weekend.
Minster’s talk — part of
an
80+ speaker lineup
— will begin at 2000 UTC
(3 PM EST) on March 13.
His appearance will
highlight ARRL’s
featured role at the
Expo, which also will
include “Ask The ARRL
Lab.” ARRL is a QSO
Today Virtual Ham Expo
Partner.
Minster, who assumed
the ARRL Headquarters
leadership position last
September, has launched
major projects and
assembled teams to
foster innovation and
individual skill
development in radio
technology and
communications. In his
keynote, Minster will
share his enthusiasm for
advancing amateur radio
and highlight current
ARRL initiatives to
engage and inspire the
current generation of
hams. His presentation
topics will include:
- ARRL’s digital
transformation,
which promises to
bring new value to
ARRL members. An
all-in digital
approach will
improve the way
members access and
engage with content,
programs, and
systems.
- The ARRL
Learning Center, a
hub for members to
discover the many
facets of amateur
radio and develop
practical knowledge
and skills.
- Increasing video
content, opening
opportunities for
amateur radio
content creators and
member-volunteers to
learn, stay
informed, and keep
connected.
- Improving
training and tools
to engage radio
clubs, emergency
communication
volunteers, and
students.
The ARRL Expo booth
will feature “Ask the
ARRL Lab,” where Lab
staffers will answer
questions live.
Attendees can come into
the booth lounge
(featuring the Expo’s
latest virtual meet-up
and video technology),
sit down at a virtual
table, and ask ARRL Lab
technical wizards for
tips about projects or
suggestions to address
various station
installations and
problems. Attendees can
also learn about Product
Review equipment testing
by the Lab, see a
presentation on how the
Lab can help hams with
RFI problems, and tour
W1AW — the Hiram Percy
Maxim Memorial Station —
virtually. ARRL booth
staff will also point
attendees to helpful
resources from across
membership benefits,
services, and programs.
Representing the ARRL
Lab will be Lab Manager
Ed Hare, W1RFI; Test
Engineer Bob Allison,
WB1GCM; Senior
Laboratory Engineer Zack
Lau, W1VT; RFI Engineer
Paul Cianciolo, W1VLF,
and W1AW Station Manager
Joe Carcia, NJ1Q.
Between all of them,
they have over 100 years
of experience at ARRL
Headquarters,
QSO Today Virtual Ham
Expo Chairman Eric Guth,
4Z1UG, also announced
four live group
kit-building workshops.
Workshop instructors
will guide participants
through building a
variety of kits, which
will be available for
purchase and delivered
prior to the Expo so
attendees can build them
at home. Attendees
unable to participate
during the live sessions
can order and build kits
by watching the workshop
videos during the
on-demand period that
follows the Expo through
April 12.
Workshop kits prices
range from $15 to $30.
Early-bird discount
tickets and links to
purchase kits can be
found at the
QSO Today Expo website.
These workshops will
include:
- Building the
NS-40 QRP
Transmitter, a
14-component, 5 W
transmitter for
7.030 MHz (with
instructors David
Cripe, NM0S, and
Virginia Smith,
NV5F).
- The
Learn-to-Solder
Workshop will
introduce the basic
tools and techniques
of building
electronic kits.
Participants will
build a 20-meter
transmitter kit
(with instructors
Rex Harper, W1REX,
and Stephen Houser,
N1SH).
- Building the
Cric-Key, a simple
CW keyer with
paddle, suitable for
home and field use
(with instructor Joe
Eisenberg, K0NEB).
- The Mini-Sudden
Receiver, a
pocket-and-mint-tin
friendly
direct-conversion
20-meter receiver
(with instructors
Rex Harper, W1REX,
and Stephen Houser,
N1SH).
Registration will
continue until February 28
for campers accepted to the
camp for the 2020 session to
attend in 2021. At that
point, Rapp said, he will
evaluate how many positions
remain for additional
campers from across the
Americas in order to fill
out the roster of 30 campers
and take applications in
March for the remaining
slots. “We are also looking
at an operating event in the
summer,” Rapp said. “Stay
tuned.”
TUESDAY EDITION: The
Cherokee tribe has requested
discussions with the Jeep
Corporation about the damage the
Jeep Cherokee model is doing to
their ego...they want it changed
to something else, when will
this politically correct
bullshit end?....Today's Dumbass
from where?
Florida of course...Solar
earth storm
video....
Become an amateur radio
operator: Free online
classes prepare people for
upcoming FCC licensing exam
Amateur radio has been
around for more than 100
years and, in this day of
cell phones, computers and
other high-tech devices, ham
radio, as it is also known,
continues to play an
important role in the world
of communication.
“In an emergency when
normal communication links
are down, hams with stations
operating with off-grid
backup power sources can
serve as a communication
resource,” said longtime
amateur radio operator Don
Campbell (call sign KE6HEC).
“Amateur radio,” he said,
“is a component of most
emergency action plans and
ham equipment is installed
in Humboldt County Office of
Education schools, fire
departments, the Humboldt
County Emergency Operations
Center, Humboldt State
University and Caltrans.”
Jaye Inabnit (KE6SLS), an
avid ham operator and past
president of the Humboldt
Amateur Radio Club, said,
“Hams around Humboldt County
and across the USA
communicate without the need
for electrical grid. Be it a
quick call to advise of our
situation or full email and
pictures, hams can and do
this every day without our
grid or cell phones.”
Ham radio operators also
provide communication
support for community events
such as parades, races and
bike rides, take part in
“contesting,” which involves
attempting to make as many
contacts as possible within
a set time frame, and are
involved in many other
activities, too.
Local ham radio operator
Cliff VanCott (KN6CEJ) said,
“We coordinate our local
training sessions. We build
a network of communicators
via scheduled nets now, so
that when a disaster hits,
we already know who and how
to reach out. By preparing
in advance, we are better
situated to respond to
immediate needs more
rapidly.
“We also have fun,”
VanCott noted. “Contests,
field days, swap meets,
weekly lunches, monthly
meetings, etc., all build a
social structure across
which many lifelong
friendships are built. Boy
Scouts have a radio merit
badge. Many colleges have
radio clubs. It’s not all
work and no play.”
Jaye Inabnit operates in
a tent above Horse Mountain
during a ham radio contest.
(Jay Inabnit — Submitted)
Inabnit said, “I’ve been
enjoying making voice
contacts with the
International Space Station
… and some of our newer
satellites in orbit. I also
have fun sending and
receiving from hams around
the planet. Finally, I
really enjoy just chatting
with my friends from Arizona
to Montana in the evenings.
It’s like having hundreds of
your best friends over all
at the same time.”
In March, the Humboldt
Amateur Radio Club will
offer a free class to help
prepare people for the
Federal Communications
Commission’s Amateur Radio
Technician Class license
examination on May 15.
Read the full story at
https://www.times-standard.com/
Elon Musk: SpaceX will double
Starlink's satellite internet
speeds in 2021
CNET report that SpaceX CEO
Elon Musk said on Twitter Monday
that his company's satellite
internet service, Starlink, will
offer speeds close to 300 Mbps
later in 2021. That's roughly
twice as fast as currently
advertised, and would represent
a significant step forward for
the service as it seeks to
deliver high-speed internet to
underserved regions across the
globe.
Musk adds that the growing
network of satellites should
offer complete global coverage
"by next year."
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on
Twitter Monday that his
company's satellite internet
service, Starlink, will offer
speeds close to 300 Mbps later
in 2021. That's roughly twice as
fast as currently advertised,
and would represent a
significant step forward for the
service as it seeks to deliver
high-speed internet to
underserved regions across the
globe.
The tweet came in reply to a
customer posting their at-home
speed test results with a newly
installed Starlink connection.
Latency, a measure of how
long it takes your internet
signal to travel to space and
back, will also drop to around
20ms this year, Musk added. That
would be a validation of the
company's strategy of launching
its satellites into low-Earth
orbit, which reduces the
distance that those signals need
to travel. That strategy has
also raised red flags with
astronomers worried about
obstructions to night sky
visibility, which is something
SpaceX has been working to
address with updates to its
satellite design.
Musk went on to reply to
another user who asked for a
coverage map, telling them that
Starlink will cover "most of
Earth by end of year, all by
next year." From there, Musk
said, it's all about "densifying
coverage," though he noted that
the satellite internet coverage
is best suited for regions with
low to medium population
density.
Read the full CNET article
https://www.cnet.com/news/elon-musk-spacex-will-double-starlinks-satellite-internet-speeds-in-2021/
UKEICC CW Contest
Any valid QSO with these
stations will score a flat ten
points regardless of distance.
This will somewhat
counterbalance the
distance-related scores enjoyed
by stations well away from the
EI/G centre of activity and
hopefully make it more
interesting for modest stations
that are based in EI/G and
further afield.
Joe EI7GY will be operating
EI5G for this contest and he
will be certainly be running
some pileups. The big event for
SSB Top Band operators is on
next weekend when the CQ
Worldwide SSB 160m contest kicks
off at 2200 on Friday night and
runs until 2200 on Sunday night.
North American stations will
give report plus state or
province while all others will
give report and CQ Zone.The
UKEICC monthly one hour 80m CW
Contest will be held on
Wednesday next the 24th at 2000.
EI5G and, for this contest at
least, GM7V will be bonus
stations. Any valid QSO with
these stations will score a flat
ten points regardless of
distance. This will somewhat
counterbalance the
distance-related scores enjoyed
by stations well away from the
EI/G centre of activity and
hopefully make it more
interesting for modest stations
that are based in EI/G and
further afield.
Joe EI7GY will be operating
EI5G for this contest and he
will be certainly be running
some pileups.
The big event for SSB Top
Band operators is on next
weekend when the CQ Worldwide
SSB 160m contest kicks off at
2200 on Friday night and runs
until 2200 on Sunday night.
North American stations will
give report plus state or
province while all others will
give report and CQ Zone.
Amateur
Radio Operators Help Fill
Earthquake Donut Holes
MONDAY EDITION: Sid
sends along a link,
interesting....Damn scary
flight of the
777 with engine problems, a
Pratt and Whitney
engine...Freeze a
Yankee story.....Panadapter
for any radio....
Email: I
was pointed today to a great
Jean Shepherd story about
unlicensed hams bootlegging
other calls even in the days
of much greater FCC
enforcement - he tells it in
super entertaining form
here:
73,Phil W1PJE
QSO Today with
Gerald Youngblood,
K5SDR from FlexRadio
Gerald
Youngblood, K5SDR,
is the founder and
CEO of FlexRadio
that is now on the
cutting edge of
building advanced
software defined
radio (SDR)
platforms for
amateur radio, as
well as for
government,
business, and the
military. Gerald is
a leader and pioneer
in the development
of SDR leading to
the founding of
FlexRadio.
This episode is a
newly minted version
of the original
interview that I had
with K5SDR in 2015.
https://www.qsotoday.com/podcasts/k5sdr

Dummy Load made with
(salt?) water, how
does this work???
CME to
sideswipe Earth
this week
Over the
weekend, a dark
filament of
magnetism on the
sun blew up,
hurling a
coronal mass
ejection (CME)
into space. NOAA
computer models
confirm that the
CME should
sideswipe Earth
on Feb. 23rd or
24th.
The glancing
blow could cause
minor G1-class
geomagnetic
storms and
high-latitude
auroras.
Full story @
Spaceweather.com.
|
One Megawatt of Peak
AM Power - Saving the
Voice of America Delano
Relay DL-8
In 2007, the Voice of
America ceased
operations at the Delano
Relay site in Central
California. The site is
destined to be bulldozed
along with several
relics of Collins Radio
Company's Broadcast
Communications Division.
The Collins
Collectors Association,
with assistance from the
Antique Wireless
Association, hatched a
plan to retrieve one of
the Collins 821A-1 250
KW Shortwave
Transmitters from the
site and place it on
display for all to see.
This presentation gives
some history of VoA and
the Delano site and
follows the disassembly
and relocation of Delano
Relay DL-8.
Dennis Kidder, W6DQ, is
a retired Aerospace
Engineer, having spent
nearly 45 years in
System Engineering. His
career spanned many
fields - from building
and operating large
scale sound systems,
computer systems used to
publish newspapers and
control communications
satellites, 4 years as
the Chief Telecom
Engineer during the
construction of the New
Hong Kong International
Airport, and finally,
air defense radar
systems and networked
radio communications
systems used by the
military.
First licensed as
WN6NIA then WA6NIA over
50 years ago, Dennis was
granted the callsign of
one of his High School
Elmers, Chek Titcomb
(SK), W6DQ. Amateur
Radio has been a nearly
life-long passion.
If you enjoyed this
video, consider becoming
a member of the Antique
Wireless Association at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrSrdArng10&feature=emb_logo
Curacao
Operators
Dan/N1ZZ, Don/AF4Z,
Walter/WB5ZGA and
Vince/K4JC, will be
active as PJ2T from
Curacao (SA-099,
WLOTA 0942) in the
ARRL DX SSB Contest
(March 6-7th) as a
Multi/? entry.
QSL PJ2T via
W3HNK.
Operators will be
on the island
between March 1-5th,
and will be active
as PJ2/homecall on
160-10 meters using
CW, SSB, CW and
possibly FT8.
QSL PJ2/homecalls
via their homecalls.
|

